To elaborate on Papal Teaching is our mission on Plinthos (Gk. "brick"); and to do so anonymously, so that, like any brick in the wall, we might do our little part in the strength of the structure of humanity almost unnoticed.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Somegreybloke has an interesting video on the three most popular youtube athiests and the type of cult they ironically inspire. Oh, and here is a treat for Holloween (Walt Disney's 1929 The Skeleton Dance) which illustrates that I have finally learned how to upload videos! Bravo!

Here are the excerpts of the main specific issues of difference between the Democratic and Republican Platforms taken from the positive side as stated in the Republican Platform:Pro-LifePro-MarriagePro-School ChoicePro-DecencyPro-God!

All of which is based on faith in Jesus Christ, without which such clear insight and societal vision is not possible. I dare to say that the Republican Platform is Judeo-Christian! Any self-respecting God fearing person must promote it.

Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the
Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm
that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot
be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse
legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to
unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion
or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or
subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the
appointment of

judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity
of innocent human life. We oppose the nonconsensual withholding or withdrawal
of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities,
including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active
and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the
barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion and permitted States to extend
health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen
the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by enacting appropriate civil and criminal
penalties on healthcare providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an
infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the
death of the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective
abortions – gender discrimination in its most lethal form—and to protect from
abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we applaud U.S.
House Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable
unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a ban on the use of
body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem
cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos
for their stem cells. We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell
research.

We also salute the many States that have passed laws for
informed consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and
health-protective clinic regulation. We seek to protect young girls from
exploitation through a parental consent requirement; and we affirm our moral
obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women challenged by an unplanned pregnancy.
We salute those who provide them with counseling and adoption alternatives and
empower them to choose life, and we take comfort in the tremendous increase in
adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.

Defending Marriage
Against An Activist Judiciary

A serious threat to our country’s constitutional order,
perhaps even more dangerous than presidential malfeasance, is an activist judider,
perhaps even more dangerous than presidential malfeasance, is an activist
judiciary, in which some judges usurp the powers reserved to other branches of
government. A blatant example has been the court-ordered redefinition of
marriage in several States. This is more than a matter of warring legal concepts
and ideals. It is an assault on the foundations of our society, challenging the
institution which, for thousands of years in virtually every civilization, has
been entrusted with the rearing of children and the transmission of cultural
values.

A Sacred Contract:
Defense of Marriage

That is why Congressional Republicans took the lead in
enacting the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of States and the
federal government not to recognize same-sex relationships licensed in other jurisdictions.
The current Administration’s open defiance of this constitutional principle—in
its handling of immigration cases, in federal personnel benefits, in allowing a
same-sex marriage at a military base, and in refusing to defend DOMA in the
courts— makes a mockery of the President’s inaugural oath.

We commend the United States House of
Representatives and State Attorneys General who have defended these laws when
they have been attacked in the courts. We reaffirm our support for a
Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one
woman. We applaud the citizens of the majority of States which have enshrined
in their constitutions the traditional concept of marriage, and we support the
campaigns underway in several other States to do so.

Consumer Choice in
Education

The Republican Party is the party of fresh and innovative
ideas in education. We support options for learning, including home schooling
and local innovations like single-sex classes, full-day school hours, and year-round
schools. School choice—whether through

charter schools, open enrollment requests, college lab schools,
virtual schools, career and technical education programs, vouchers, or tax
credits—is important for all children, especially for families with children trapped
in failing schools. Getting those youngsters

into decent learning environments and helping them to
realize their full potential is the greatest civil rights challenge of our
time. We support the promotion of local career and technical educational
programs and entrepreneurial programs that have been supported

by leaders in industry and will retrain and retool the American
workforce, which is the best in the world.

A young person’s ability to achieve in school must be based
on his or her God-given talent and motivation, not an address, zip code, or
economic status.

In sum, on the one hand enormous amounts of money are being
spent for K-12 public education with overall results that do not justify that
spending. On the other hand, the common experience of families, teachers, and
administrators forms the basis of what

does work in education. We believe the gap between those two
realities can be successfully bridged, and Congressional Republicans are
pointing a new way

forward with major reform legislation. We support its
concept of block grants and the repeal of numerous federal regulations which
interfere with State and local control of public schools.

The bulk of the federal money through Title I for low-income
children and through IDEA for disabled youngsters should follow the students to
whatever school they choose so that eligible pupils, through open enrollment,
can bring their share of the funding with them. The Republican-founded D.C.
Opportunity Scholarship Program should be expanded as a

model for the rest of the country. We deplore the efforts by
Congressional Democrats and the current President to kill this successful
program for disadvantaged students in order to placate the leaders of the
teachers’ unions. We support putting the needs of students before the special
interests of unions when approaching elementary and secondary education reform.

Because parents are a child’s first teachers, we support
family literacy programs, which improve the reading, language, and life skills
of both parents and children from low-income families. To ensure that all students
have access to the mainstream of American

life, we support the English First approach and oppose
divisive programs that limit students’ ability to advance in American society.
We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with abstinence
education which teaches abstinence until

marriage as the responsible and respected standard of
behavior. Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100
percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases
including HIV/AIDS when transmitted sexually. It is effective, science-based,
and empowers teens to achieve optimal health outcomes and avoid risks of sexual
activity. We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling,
and related services for abortion and contraception. We support

keeping federal funds from being used in mandatory or
universal mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening programs.

We applaud America’s
great teachers, who should be protected against frivolous litigation and should
be able to take reasonable actions to maintain discipline and order in the
classroom. We support legislation that will correct the current law provision which
defines a “Highly Qualified Teacher” merely by his or her credentials, not
results in the classroom.

We urge school districts to make use of teaching talent in
business, STEM fields, and in the military, especially among our returning
veterans. Rigid tenure systems based on the “last in, first out” policy should be
replaced with a merit-based approach that can attract fresh talent and
dedication to the classroom. All personnel who interact with school children
should pass background checks and be held to the highest standards of personal
conduct.

The First Amendment: The Foresight of Our Founders to Protect Religious Freedom

The first provision of the First Amendment concerns freedom of religion. That guarantee reflected

Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which declared that no one should “suffer

on account of his religious opinion or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to

maintain, their opinion in matters of religion….” That assurance has never been more needed than it is

today, as liberal elites try to drive religious beliefs— and religious believers—out of the public square. The

Founders of the American Republic universally agree that democracy presupposes a moral people and that,

in the words of George Washington’s Farewell Address, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead

to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

The most offensive instance of this war on religion has been the current Administration’s attempt to compel faith-related institutions, as well as believing individuals, to contravene their deeply held religious, moral, or ethical beliefs regarding health services, traditional marriage, or abortion. This forcible secularization of religious and religiously affiliated organizations, including faith-based hospitals and colleges, has been in tandem with the current Administration’s audacity in declaring which faith related activities are, or are not, protected by the First Amendment—an unprecedented aggression repudiated by a unanimous Supreme Court in its Hosanna Tabor v. EEOC decision.

We pledge to respect the religious beliefs and rights of conscience of all Americans and to safeguard

the independence of their institutions from government. We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and of our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, and we affirm the right of students to engage in prayer at public school events in public schools and to have equal access to

public schools and other public facilities to accommodate religious freedom in the public square. We assert every citizen’s right to apply religious values to public policy and the right of faith-based organizations to participate fully in public programs without renouncing their beliefs, removing religious symbols, or submitting to government-imposed hiring practices. We oppose government discrimination against businesses due to religious views. We support the First Amendment right of freedom of association of the Boy Scouts of America and other service organizations whose values are under assault and condemn the State blacklisting of religious groups which decline to arrange adoptions by same-sex couples. We condemn the hate campaigns, threats of violence, and vandalism by proponents of same-sex marriage against advocates of traditional marriage and call for a federal investigation into attempts to deny religious believers their civil rights.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Pope Benedict today interrupts his Wednesday catechetical series on prayer for a year of faith series on the Creed stating that it is in the Creed that we find the essence (source and meaning) of the faith. That is why, he says, Blessed Pope John Paul II structured the Catechism of the Catholic Church within the framework of the Creed.

In this context it is interesting to note that one of Ratizinger's early books, one of his rare treatises, Introduction to Christianity is an modern explanation on the Creed. It would be worth while to read that book alongside the upcoming Wednesday audiences.

By the way, that work has three introductions written by the author, Summer 1968, September 1969 (tenth edition) and 2000.

Very prominent in the plaza is this impressive monument to this Catholic hero warrior!

During my recent sojourn in France I was often reminded of the great Christian heritage of the eldest daughter of the Church, for example in her sculptures. For starters, take Charlemagne at Notre Dame, as representative of all the heroic promoters and defenders of the Truth in that land. The facade of Notre Dame has dozens of crowned kings of France with Our crowned Lady (their Queen, with scepter and the divine Child in arms) above them.

On the 23 January 2009 the Holy Father, while emphasizes the positive contributions of "cyberspace" in promoting communication and education, warned of the dangers to the dignity of the human person. A subtle danger in internet communication is that of shallow relationships substituting for real human love.

"The concept of friendship has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years. The concept is one of the noblest achievements of human culture. It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as humans. For this reason, true friendship has always been seen as one of the greatest goods any human person can experience. We should be careful, therefore, never to trivialize the concept or the experience of friendship. It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbours and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation. If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development."

At somegreybloke.com, though often crude and at times blasphemous, there is a clever critique of some of these dangers in the use of facebook.

Throughout his Il Giornale dell'Anima (ed. San Paolo 1989, p. 71) Blessed John XXIII cites and shows that he practiced the following counsels from De Imitatione Christi 3, 23, 1-7, the great sources of peace.

In these socially troubling times it is helpful to hear the Holy Father tell us of Christ's role in our world. Christ sets human freedom free by giving it purpose and therefore meaning: godliness!

Papal Address to Social Sciences Academy
"Natural Law Is a Universal Guide Recognizable to Everyone"
VATICAN CITY, MAY 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of the English-language address Benedict XVI gave today to the members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. The members of the academy are gathered in the Vatican through Tuesday for their plenary session, which is focused on Catholic social doctrine and human rights.
* * *

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
As you gather for the fifteenth Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, I am pleased to have this occasion to meet with you and to express my encouragement for your mission of expounding and furthering the Church's social doctrine in the areas of law, economy, politics and the various other social sciences. Thanking Professor Mary Ann Glendon for her cordial words of greeting, I assure you of my prayers that the fruit of your deliberations will continue to attest to the enduring pertinence of Catholic social teaching in a rapidly changing world.
After studying work, democracy, globalisation, solidarity and subsidiarity in relation to the social teaching of the Church, your Academy has chosen to return to the central question of the dignity of the human person and human rights, a point of encounter between the doctrine of the Church and contemporary society.
The world's great religions and philosophies have illuminated some aspects of these human rights, which are concisely expressed in "the golden rule" found in the Gospel: "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (Lk 6:31; cf. Mt 7:12). The Church has always affirmed that fundamental rights, above and beyond the different ways in which they are formulated and the different degrees of importance they may have in various cultural contexts, are to be upheld and accorded universal recognition because they are inherent in the very nature of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God. If all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, then they share a common nature that binds them together and calls for universal respect. The Church, assimilating the teaching of Christ, considers the person as "the worthiest of nature" (St. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, 9, 3) and has taught that the ethical and political order that governs relationships between persons finds its origin in the very structure of man's being. The discovery of America and the ensuing anthropological debate in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe led to a heightened awareness of human rights as such and of their universality (ius gentium). The modern period helped shape the idea that the message of Christ - because it proclaims that God loves every man and woman and that every human being is called to love God freely - demonstrates that everyone, independently of his or her social and cultural condition, by nature deserves freedom. At the same time, we must always remember that "freedom itself needs to be set free. It is Christ who sets it free" (Veritatis Splendor, 86).
In the middle of the last century, after the vast suffering caused by two terrible world wars and the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by totalitarian ideologies, the international community acquired a new system of international law based on human rights. In this, it appears to have acted in conformity with the message that my predecessor Benedict XV proclaimed when he called on the belligerents of the First World War to "transform the material force of arms into the moral force of law" ("Note to the Heads of the Belligerent Peoples", 1 August 1917).
Human rights became the reference point of a shared universal ethos - at least at the level of aspiration - for most of humankind. These rights have been ratified by almost every State in the world. The Second Vatican Council, in the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, as well as my predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II, forcefully referred to the right to life and the right to freedom of conscience and religion as being at the centre of those rights that spring from human nature itself.
Strictly speaking, these human rights are not truths of faith, even though they are discoverable - and indeed come to full light - in the message of Christ who "reveals man to man himself" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). They receive further confirmation from faith. Yet it stands to reason that, living and acting in the physical world as spiritual beings, men and women ascertain the pervading presence of a logos which enables them to distinguish not only between true and false, but also good and evil, better and worse, and justice and injustice. This ability to discern - this radical agency - renders every person capable of grasping the "natural law", which is nothing other than a participation in the eternal law: "unde...lex naturalis nihil aliud est quam participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura" (St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, 91, 2). The natural law is a universal guide recognizable to everyone, on the basis of which all people can reciprocally understand and love each other. Human rights, therefore, are ultimately rooted in a participation of God, who has created each human person with intelligence and freedom. If this solid ethical and political basis is ignored, human rights remain fragile since they are deprived of their sound foundation.
The Church's action in promoting human rights is therefore supported by rational reflection, in such a way that these rights can be presented to all people of good will, independently of any religious affiliation they may have. Nevertheless, as I have observed in my Encyclicals, on the one hand, human reason must undergo constant purification by faith, insofar as it is always in danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by disordered passions and sin; and, on the other hand, insofar as human rights need to be re-appropriated by every generation and by each individual, and insofar as human freedom - which proceeds by a succession of free choices - is always fragile, the human person needs the unconditional hope and love that can only be found in God and that lead to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 18, and Spe Salvi, 24).
This perspective draws attention to some of the most critical social problems of recent decades, such as the growing awareness - which has in part arisen with globalisation and the present economic crisis - of a flagrant contrast between the equal attribution of rights and the unequal access to the means of attaining those rights. For Christians who regularly ask God to "give us this day our daily bread", it is a shameful tragedy that one-fifth of humanity still goes hungry. Assuring an adequate food supply, like the protection of vital resources such as water and energy, requires all international leaders to collaborate in showing a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the natural law and promoting solidarity and subsidiarity with the weakest regions and peoples of the planet as the most effective strategy for eliminating social inequalities between countries and societies and for increasing global security.
Dear friends, dear Academicians, in exhorting you in your research and deliberations to be credible and consistent witnesses to the defence and promotion of these non-negotiable human rights which are founded in divine law, I most willingly impart to you my Apostolic Blessing.

Bishop Arthur Serratelli's article in the Archdiocese of Newark's official newspaper The Catholic Advocate (27 October 2010) could just have well been written by the editorial board of The New York Times or Playboy Magazine, for that matter, in it's neglect to name and condemn the sin of the sodomites. He is keen on judging and condemning ridicule (which might have been warranted given the circumstances: viz. the roommate wantonly engaging in leud conduct in the presence of the innocent roommate).

--The leudness of any public demonstration of homosexual affection needs to be acknowledged and condemned.

--Appropriate social pressure needs to be applied to properly educate the young and discipline all (young and old) in morality: (n.b. the anti-sodomy laws of New Jersey [and of most of the States of the Nation] up until as recent as ten years ago).

Laws are necessary to teach people (young and old) what is right and wrong and to help them to stop doing what is wrong. New Jersey's anti-sodomy law would have obviated this tragedy because the immoral roommate would not be affronting the other roommate. He would recognize his immoral impulses as immoral and disordered and would hide them and work to eliminate them and in every other area of immorality. A college dormitory of unmarried persons is no place for any sexual activity, never mind sodomy, and especially while sharing the room with a third person (who is potentially corrupted and certainly offended by such displays of immorality).

It is curious that all of this is ignored by the Bishop who happens to be a leader in the National Conference of Catholic Bishops doctrinal commission. No wonder Catholic's are confused. Even the best of our bishops' judgement is corrupted by political correctness. He wants to condemn "homophobia" and has no fear of showing himself to be a homophile (a defender and promoter of the homosexual and immoral confusion and agenda). Do not make yesterday's sinners into today's saints. What was condemned as immoral yesterday is to be condemned also today.

When our incisive Pontiff repeats a point it is worth studying that point. He has recently repeatedly referred to and superlatively praised Saint Thomas Aquinas' treatment of the life of Christ in the Summa.

He compares what he is attempting with Jesus of Nazareth to what the Angelic Doctor did:
"[My intention can be compared] with the theological treatise on the mysteries of the life of Jesus, presented in its classic form by Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (S. Th. III, qq. 27-59). While my book has many points of contact with this treatise, it is nevertheless situated in a different historical and spiritual context, and in that sense it also has a different inner objective that determines the structure of the text in essential ways."

Given Pope Benedict's use and praise of the same, it seems to me that it should be very advantageous to take an in-depth look at that "unparalleled" part of the Summa and use it in our catechesis and preaching.

Monday, October 15, 2012

"'The Jews [said]...for blasphemy...we stone thee..., and because, thou, being a man, makest thyself God'. Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your Law, 'I said you are gods'?" Jn. 10:34

Christ was killed for claiming to be God, because he called God His Father, and like begets like. If your father is God then you are God! Their logic was sound. Now here is the clincher. Christ divinizes us. He makes us sons of God. He makes us God! Perfect Mary is the proof! She has a position equal to God in heaven, a mere mortal! I have been reminded of this during these past few days in the Mass readings.

Today: Galatians 5: "...qua libertate Christus nos liberavit." By our birth of the free woman, not of the slave, Christ has made us free--sons, and for freedom. In other words by His sanctifying us He has made us sons of God. Truly sons. Not figuratively. By adoption, not by inheritance, but no less truly. "Amen, amen I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave[...]of sin...If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Jn. 8:34

What really struck me was the Gospel last week (Wednesday [27 p.a.] Luke 11:1-4) on the Pater Noster. It is unthinkable that we should call God our Father without qualification--the very thing for which the Jews killed Christ, a logical impossibility, viz. that we, being men, should make ourselves God. Well, Christ, being God by nature, makes us God by grace (by communion with Him)--Christ adopts us by His incarnation and redemption into the family of the Most Blessed Trinity. We have been given an added nature, the divine nature. That is the only way that we can honestly say the Pater. If God is our Father we are the same species! That makes us God! Wow!

"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are!" 1Jn. 3:1

Man is God! That is the essence and the purpose of Christ and of Christianity, not in the poetic sense but really. The divine nature He gives us is just as real as the human nature He has given us! Christians have both natures just as Christ does!

Saturday, October 13, 2012

It has just been announced that the Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments--Cardinal Canizares--will be the celebrant of the Solemn High Pontifical Mass on 3 November (3PM) to conclude the three day pilgrimage commemorating the fifth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum.

How appropriate! The only thing greater would be for His Holiness Pope Benedict himself to attend!